This trait could shed light on the mysteries of human perception. Does it live within you?
Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.
MIT researchers use AI to uncover atomic defects in materials
In biology, defects are generally bad. But in materials science, defects can be intentionally tuned to give materials useful new properties. Today, atomic-scale defects are carefully introduced during the manufacturing process of products like steel, semiconductors, and solar cells to help improve strength, control electrical conductivity, optimize performance, and more.
But even as defects have become a powerful tool, accurately measuring different types of defects and their concentrations in finished products has been challenging, especially without cutting open or damaging the final material. Without knowing what defects are in their materials, engineers risk making products that perform poorly or have unintended properties.
Now, MIT researchers have built an AI model capable of classifying and quantifying certain defects using data from a noninvasive neutron-scattering technique. The model, which was trained on 2,000 different semiconductor materials, can detect up to six kinds of point defects in a material simultaneously, something that would be impossible using conventional techniques alone.
Naturally self-reactive B cells are poised to cross the selection barrier into autoimmune germinal centers
Circulating B cells often react to self-antigen, but whether this predisposes for autoimmunity is unclear. Using a mouse model of lupus erythematosus, Zhu et al. demonstrate that human B cells displaying naturally autoreactive immunoglobulin sequences are advantaged for retention when immune tolerance is broken.
The 2024 Oppenheimer Lecture featuring Andrea Liu
Physical systems that can learn by themselves.
Brains learn and perform an enormous variety of tasks on their own, using relatively little energy. Brains are able to accomplish this without an external computer because their analog constituent parts (neurons) update their connections without knowing what all the other neurons are doing using local rules. We have developed an approach to learning that shares the property that analog constituent parts update their properties via a local rule, but does not otherwise emulate the brain. Instead, we exploit physics to learn in a far simpler way. Our collaborators have implemented this approach in the lab, developing physical systems that learn and perform machine learning tasks on their own with little energy cost. These systems should open up the opportunity to study how many more is different within a new paradigm for scalable learning.
We Found Galaxies Too Old for the Universe
Learn More About Opera: https://opr.as/04-Opera-browser-pbssp…
The James Webb Space Telescope found galaxies that are too ancient-looking for our young universe. You may have heard that, but it keeps finding them, and our recent efforts to solve this conundrum point in wildly different directions. Have we found galaxies older than the universe, or did we just learn something incredible about how galaxies form?
Check out be smart’s mercator map episode. • something strange happens when you flatten…
And the full earth month playlist. • behind the scenes: the fight to save india…
Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
/ pbsspacetime.
Check out the Space Time Merch Store.
Scientists DOUBLED Mouse Lifespan With This Immune System Breakthrough
A biotech company just doubled the lifespan of mice without changing their diet and without editing their genes.
Instead, they trained the immune system to hunt down and destroy the cells that make the body age. Then they flooded the body with fresh stem cells to rebuild what was lost.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s longevity science happening right now.
Futurists Don’t Have Crystal Balls: How to Hire a Futurist Keynote Speaker
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt assembled what was then the most credentialed group of forecasters in the world. He called it the Brain Trust.
He asked them to map the next 25 years.
They missed transistors. They missed atomic energy. They missed antibiotics. They missed faster-than-sound travel. They missed space probes. They missed World War II.
I have spent the last 16 years interviewing 300 of the most credentialed futurists alive. From Ray Kurzweil to Peter Diamandis to Marvin Minsky to Sir Martin Rees.
They agree on almost nothing.
That is my report from inside the room.
There is now a professional class that sells certainty about an inherently uncertain thing. Call it the crystal ball industry. The product is confidence. The buyer is the anxious executive. The medium is the keynote stage.
